WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

Lot 29
10.06.2025 00:00UTC +01:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1422613
Lot 29 | WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
Estimate value
$ 1 000 000 – 1 500 000
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
Songs of Innocence
Printed by the author, 1789.

·One of the first five copies printed of William Blake’s first book of illuminated poems
·Blake's first major work of illuminated printing: the extraordinary, innovative synthesis of word and image
·21 plates printed in green ink and hand-colored by William Blake and his wife Catherine in distinctive, delicate pastels; the only green ink copy in private hands
·With distinguished provenance; not only Maurice Sendak’s personal copy but also from the collections of Edwin Grabhorn and of Abel Berland




Provenance

Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 20 November 1899, lot 116 (sold to:)
Bernard Quaritch (Catalogue of the Literature and History of the British Islands Part V, no. 3651, 1900)
Edward J. Shaw, Esq., of Walsall (Sotheby's, 29 July 1925, lot 159; sold to:)
Walter T. Spencer
American Art Association, 14 April 1926, lot 75 (sold to:)
W. Clarkson
Dr. John Wooster Robertson (1856-1941), Livermore, California, a physician, book collector, and early bibliographer of Edgar Allan Poe
Edwin E. Grabhorn (1889-1968), San Francisco, the son-in-law of the above, co-founder of the Grabhorn Press and a noted collector of Japanese prints (according to Warren Howell’s information, as provided to Blake bibliographer G.E. Bentley)
John Howell Books, Catalogue 34 English Literature, no. 98, 1963 (sold to:)
John E. du Pont (1938-2010), Newtown Square, Pennsylvania (see Blake in the Marketplace, 1978-1979)
John Howell Books, sold privately in 1978 to:
Abel Berland (1915-2010), Glencoe, Illinois (his sale, Christie’s New York, 9 October 2001; sold to Justin Schiller as agent for:)
Maurice Sendak
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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10.06.2025 – 10.06.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
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